Presencing the Presence Within

I write today from the Phoenix area, at the home of a dear friend from graduate school. I am ushered out of weeks of solitude into the warm welcome of her home, our long friendship, and her generous presence. To be here is to be as close to home from far away as I can imagine, this, the first homing since leaving home. I delight in seeing her. I am soothed by the sense of the familiar, comforted by the comfort of home.  

Even so, driving into an urban area from the silence that filled my days in southern New Mexico, I sensed my grip tightening around the steering wheel, arms and neck stiffening, abdomen armoring. The roar of trucks whirring by on the freeway and congesting of cars were unsettling. It will be good to land, I thought. I have been eager for this visit, imagining the conversations to unfold between us.

I arrived immediately immersed, and we talked into the night. When I fell asleep, I fell full. But something woke me.

It was the absence of the absence of sound. Nowhere my e…